Ministry Failure

I had a moment.  One of those moments when you feel like you're banging your head against a wall for the Lord.

You know the kind.  You work and plan and plan and work on a ministry...you pray and cry and laugh and pray...and the final result is...

Zilch!  Nada!  Nothing!  Nothing worked out.  No one came to Christ. No plan led to the Church's numbers being added to daily.  

The result was nothing.

Then I started to wonder.

Did I hear God correctly?  Did I somehow mess this up?  

Eventually I started to feel like a failure.  I knew that God never fails, so it must be me.  Maybe I didn't pray enough or work hard enough or raise my hands high enough.  

Next came discouragement. Discouragement is a powerful weapon that the enemy uses against our ministries. One that is all too often successful.

But then...then God's Word, His precious, life-giving, Word told me to stop.  It told me to slow down, quiet my spirit and look into the Spirit of God for what is important regarding my calling, my ministry.

I didn't catch it at first.  

The first time I read through 2 Thessalonians 1, I breezed right past it, but the Spirit kept gently, but steadily beckoning me.

So I read it again...and again.

Then I saw it.  It is this little verse in the midst of a chapter full of powerful words of God's judgement and power. 

This little verse with one of the most powerful messages for ministry that I have heard:

"Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring."  2 Thessalonians 1:4


Perseverance and faith!

It was about their perseverance and faith.  It was not about what came about from the ministry.  Paul applauded them for their perseverance and their faith.  

Were there other things that were important?  Sure!  But right then, at that time, perseverance and faith were the significant aspects.

It is so easy for us to get caught up in the results of ministry. And Ephesians 4 tells us we all have a work of service or ministry! 

When we pour into people and they don't turn to Jesus it is easy to feel like we have failed.

But to be in a place where we have functioned in the Spirit and in our calling and have it not be about our results, but about our perseverance and our faith!!  What a burden that removes!

You see, God created us and knows our inner most being.  He knows that we have a tendency to make it personal, even though it is all about Him.  And He knows that tendency will lead us down paths of discouragement and destruction in our ministries.

And here, nestled in 2 Thessalonians 1, He sends a message...

Hold tight.  It's not about the results.  Your perseverance and faith are enough...

It's not about me and it is not about my results or my success or even my failure.  It is about my perseverance and faith.

And sometimes I just need to be reminded of that.



author: Kristi